


More than a Taste

by taibhrigh



Series: Forever in a Taste [1]
Category: The Losers (2010), The Losers - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Community: smallfandomfest, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-27
Updated: 2011-07-27
Packaged: 2017-10-21 19:57:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/229150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taibhrigh/pseuds/taibhrigh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cougar discovers a secret Jake isn’t sure he was ever really trying to hide from the other man.</p>
            </blockquote>





	More than a Taste

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Siluria](http://archiveofourown.org/users/siluria) for the beta.
> 
> This was written for smallfandomfest #9 on LJ.

~~~***~~~

Jensen bit his lip. It was a nervous habit that after all these years he still hadn't broken himself of. It only became a real issue in moments like this. And then, normally no one was around to see. Or, more like it, no one survived to tell.

He took a deep breath before looking across the room at Cougar. "I can explain," he said, holding his hands up in a placating manner. He had no plans to kill Cougar. And maybe that's why he had slipped up so badly in the first place. Thank God they weren't on a mission. "Really. It's simple."

Cougar lifted his eyebrow, as if saying _okay, get on with it then_.

Seriously, he and Cougar had more conversations with only one of them actually doing the talking than he'd ever had in his entire life and that was saying a lot. And he'd always found the ones with Cougar to be comforting and not frustrating. Until now. Though, Jensen guessed it could be worse, Cougar hadn't pulled a gun on him yet. The Spanish man just stood there staring at him. Assessing him.

Jensen would have shivered if Cougar had given him that look at any other time. Here though he went perfectly still and stared back. He knew his eyes were a brighter blue than normal--almost crystal. Gone was the carefree computer hacker, instead a predator stood there gazing back at Cougar. He put his hands down slowly before licking the blood from his lips. He heard Cougar's heartbeat speed up but other than that there had been no outward sign from Cougar and Jensen knew his action had revealed the tip of one of his fangs.

"From the beginning or what?" he asked calmly. "We don't have a lot of time and I'd like to blow this place--and I mean that literally--before anyone else pops in for a visit."

Cougar didn't move and Jensen's nose twitched slightly when a familiar scent finally filtered through the other smells in the room.

"You're bleeding. Are you shot? How did you get shot?" he questioned, taking a step towards Cougar. Cougar took a half step back. "Cougs," he said dryly, "I can move faster than you. Now answer the question."

"Si."

"You only speak Spanish to me when you're pissed at me."

Cougar glared for a second before giving a slight shrug. "Wasn't a through and through."

"Where? Never mind."

And before Cougar could comment Jake spotted the stain just seeping past the jacket his friend wore. The wound seemed to be on Cougar's left side just past the waist.

"How bad?" Cougar always threw his senses in a tizzy. "And don't say fine. You always say fine and you just said there was no exit."

Jensen didn't wait. He moved and in the time it took to blink he was standing beside Cougar and his hands were already pushing the jacket back and pulling the shirt away from the wound. Cougar tried to pull back but Jensen wouldn't let him.

"I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not a mass murdering lunatic."

Cougar snorted and Jensen looked around the room quickly at the four bodies--all but one seemed to have just dropped where they had been--before turning back to inspect the wound.

"Umm, I can explain this too. Not that I've explained anything else yet but if I had known you were going to follow me and then get shot I would have...I don't know what I would have done. I hadn't exactly planned on killing them all, but that first guy shot me a couple times and I got a little angry and then a little hungry. And now the neighborhood drug house will have an unfortunate fire and Becca will be safe."

He knelt next to Cougar and gently ran his finger to either side of the wound. Cougar grunted quietly on the second pass and Jensen knew he had found the bullet.

"This is going to hurt at first," Jensen began, holding Cougar's shirt and jacket up out of the way while tugging Cougar's pants further down the man's hip so he would have better access to the wound.

He stopped when Cougar grasped his head and tilted it back so they could look each other in the eye.

"Explain."

"Persistent bastard."

"Jake."

Jensen stilled and blinked. Cougar rarely called him by his first name, at least not directly, and normally it was preceded by _uncle_ when Becca was around.

"I promise, I will tell you," Jake paused. "Everything...if you want. Just let me fix this, toast the house, and we can...go to...we can talk, the rooftop garden we found that night we were parkouring the city."

Cougar looked at him as if he was searching for something and he must have found it because he nodded.

Jake sighed in relief. "This will be a little easier if you could lean your shoulders against the wall so I don't have to worry about you rocking backwards," he said, not mentioning that it would be even easier if Cougar was lying down because even he knew this wasn't the time or place for a comment like that.

They moved backward the half dozen or so steps and Jake once again knelt down at Cougar's side. "Hold your shirt and jacket out of the way." Cougar did as he was told and Jake once again moved Cougar's pants away from the wound.

"I'm sorry," he said, the only warning he gave before biting Cougar.

Cougar grunted in pain as Jake began to suck and then the noise sounded like a moan of pleasure for a second. The bullet popped into Jake's mouth. He swallowed the blood, Cougar tasted wonderful--earthy and spicy. The bullet he spit into his hand before sliding it into the pocket of his jeans.

He licked at the wound before using his fangs to cut several grooves into his palm. Blood welled up as he made a fist and he dripped the blood into Cougar's wound. Cougar hissed, but Jake continued to let the blood drip into the wound even as it began to heal.

He leaned in and licked at the wound and cleared away the remaining blood revealing perfectly smooth skin. He licked once more, just to hear Cougar make that pleasurable sigh again. Then Jake opened his own palm and licked away the blood before rocking back on his feet and standing.

Cougar, for his part, only began to stir once Jake was standing in front of him.

"How do you feel?"

Cougar tilted his head and then looked down at where the wound had been before dropping his shirt and jacket back into place. "Weird," he answered.

Jake made a noise that sounded like a giggle before he clapped a hand over his mouth. He didn't move for a couple of seconds and then he dropped his hand away.

"Is that better than fine?" he asked.

"Si."

"Are you still pissed at me?"

"Si."

"Damnit."

Jake backed a few feet away and looked around the drug house. He picked up several of the half filled bottles of beer; pouring the contents of some on the floor and furniture around him before throwing the bottles at the walls. Then he moved to the bottles of vodka and shook out some of the liquid before dropping the first bottle next to one of the bodies. The glass broke and the liquid splashed all over the floor and the body.

He ignored Cougar and walked into the kitchen, popping a skillet onto the stove and flipping on the dials before rooting through the refrigerator. He grabbed several eggs and another two bottles of beer. He let one of the eggs drop on the ground before cracking the other two into the skillet and pouring some of the beer in before leaving the beer bottle tipped over on the counter. The second bottle he left, cap on, sitting on the stove.

Jake then lit a couple of the joints and dropped one into the skillet and tossed the other toward the spilt vodka. The vodka caught on fire and raced across the spill pattern towards the body.

"Time for us to depart," he commented, walking towards the back door just as the couch in the living room went up in flames.

They were standing in the middle of the backyard when Cougar called his name again. "Jake."

"Yes, Carlos?" he replied calmly, stopping to look at the other man. The house now starting to go up in flames.

"Are you," Cougar looked back at the house for a second and seemed to change his mind. "My bike is in the alleyway just over the fence."

Jensen nodded and switched directions toward the alley Cougar had indicated. He cocked his head slightly to the right. "I hear sirens. Also, the stove's about..."

~~~***~~~

The sound of the explosion covered the rest of Jensen's comment and Cougar figured that was just as well. He was unsettled. And it was only Jensen who could manage to do that to him. He wanted to ask if the other man was okay; ask who he really was; he wanted to ask Jake a hundred questions. But he held his tongue.

Cougar watched as Jake effortlessly leapt over the eight foot fence and landed gracefully on the other side. Cougar followed him just as gracefully even if he did have to put his foot in the middle of the fence and use his hands at the top to spring over.

Jake was standing next to the motorcycle waiting for him. He climbed on and started the engine as Jake got on the seat behind him. He was still feeling weird from whatever Jake had done to heal him, but it was a good weird.

He figured he should be afraid of Jake, but Cougar knew--felt it in his very soul--that Jake would never hurt him. Cougar had always known that, even before the first time he had gone home with Jake to meet Jen and Becca.

Cougar gathered his thoughts as he drove the bike through the city. He felt Jake's arms tighten around him when the building came into sight. It was the only sign that Cougar had that Jake was actually nervous.

He parked the bike and climbed off. Neither man said anything until they reached the side of the building where the fancy stacked brick pattern went all the way to the top. Ten stories straight up, getting smaller as the design went up and around the curve of the building.

Jake turned to look at him and once again the hacker was biting his lip. "I'll see you at the top," Jake said, as if expecting Cougar not to meet him up there.

Cougar watched as Jake sprinted the few steps and then easily jumped from one section to another. He realized that Jake was actually skipping a few levels here and there.

 _He knows I know so he's not hiding it,_ Cougar thought before shrugging it off and taking his own running start following the other man up the side of the building, even if it did take him almost twice as long.

Jake was pacing and muttering to himself when Cougar pulled himself over the ledge.

"You came?"

And Cougar could hear the hint of relief in Jake's voice. "Si."

"Are you still mad at me?" Jake whined.

Cougar licked his lips. "Confused," he answered, honestly. "Who are you?"

"Don't you mean what?"

He shook his head no and said, "I figured that one out on my own. Vampire."

"Yeah," Jake acknowledged quietly.

"Jake." Cougar moved closer to the other man and lifted his hand to Jake's cheek. "Tell me."

Jake took a step to the side and straddled one end of the stone park bench. Cougar mirrored the move so that he was facing Jake and waited.

He heard Jake sigh. "You know, I've never actually done this...My name is Jacob Andrew Jensen and I died, well, that's wrong because I'm not a zombie and vampires don't actually die. I mean, my heart still beats, very slowly unless I make it go faster, but it still beats. Eighteen sixty-one. Somewhere between Fort Laramie and a small town named Sweetwater. I was riding relay. Never mind." Jake waved it off and continued. "Anyway, there was a snake, a horse, a man with a gun, and me...wow, that sounds like a bad joke. Can I start that over?"

"No." Cougar had always been fond of history, especially of the Western Expansion. He easily put the clues together. "You rode for the Pony Express," he commented.

"Yeah. They wanted orphans. I needed the money to send back to my sister so to Russell, Majors, and Waddell I was an orphan."

"Jen?"

Jake shook his head slowly almost sadly. "No," he answered. "Rebecca Jensen. Her husband died in the war and left her and a baby son alone. I was younger--lanky, hadn't put on the muscle, and could pass for a kid. I went West looking for a job...and I loved it. It was good and then all I remember really is this man standing over me and he said something like today is the first day of your new life and you know, how cliche is that? I mean..."

Cougar listened as Jake told him everything from riding with the Pony Express to being a radio operator in both World Wars. To going to school in different centuries. To always returning home to check on his sister's family.

"Becca," Jake began, "she's my great-great-great something or other niece. She doesn't know what I am. Jen only knows because, well because, she reminded me so much of my own sister and I guess we both needed each other ten years ago and I'm not ready to let myself be alone again."

"You do not sparkle," Cougar stated, knowing that would break Jake out of whatever downward thoughts had been brought forward by telling Cougar his story.

"I hate those books."

"I know," Cougar replied with a smile. "You seem to have no problem with the sun."

Jake shrugged. "I don't tan, but really most vampire lore is wrong. I can cross running water. I don't have to stop and count things. I can be out in the sun. What I am is faster than a human, I have the ability to heal quickly, and I drink blood."

"Where do you get the blood?"

~~~***~~~

Jake had been waiting for that question. "I am not nearly as inept at picking up a woman or man as you guys think. But that cover has worked well for me. Kept you from asking questions."

He listened to Cougar's heart race for a second. This was the good kind of racing, the kind that meant he might just have a shot at Cougar climbing into bed with him.

"Blood banks," Jake shrugged. "So maybe the movies got something right with that one. An animal here or there though that's not really filling, but it does work in a pinch. Our targets once or twice..."

Jake adjusted his glasses. Vampirism had not fixed his vision. "You know that gun I took off that General...it didn't misfire. He shot me in the chest. I got a little pissed and then ripped the guy's throat open before covering it with several shots to the neck. I didn't know my comms had been knocked offline and...I thought I'd need to disappear. But then you came in from wherever it is you spring from anytime you think I'm injured and I was just happy I didn't have to start over."

He would have had to leave Jen and Becca. He would have been alone again.

"Start over?"

Jake looked up. "I don't actually age. I can grow my hair out, color it, shave it, grow a beard, but after a while I have to start over. People would begin to notice. Computers are great. I can erase myself or change who I am in a matter of minutes. I knew Clay's grandfather," he added for no reason that he could think of.

Cougar lifted an eyebrow.

"Sort of the same. Kinda always barking."

Cougar snorted.

~~~***~~~

Jake suddenly jumped up from the bench and started to pace next to it. Cougar recognized it as nervous energy--as if Jake had been thinking in one direction, only to have that big brain of his jump in the opposite, worst case scenario, direction.

"Am I going to need to start over, Carlos?" Jake asked. "And if I do, you'll leave Jen and Becca alone, right? Not tell the others."

Cougar grabbed Jake's wrist and yanked the man to a stop, before pulling him to sit back on the bench. "Estas loco?"

"Spanish again?"

"Si."

"I am not insane."

Cougar snorted. They were in the Losers, being a little crazy was necessary. "You are safe, Jake," he said, fingers tightening around the wrist. "And nothing will happen to Jen or Becca."

Jake started to stand and Cougar grabbed the other man by the back of the head and pulled him forward until their lips met. After a moment Jake tried to pull away but Cougar wouldn't let him. Instead he gently ran his tongue over Jake's teeth. The second pass Cougar could feel Jake's incisors grow, becoming the fangs he had seen and felt pierce his skin earlier.

Cougar wrapped his tongue around one of the fangs before scraping his tongue against the point just scarring enough to cause blood to well. Jake's tongue pushed Cougar's away from the fang and swiped their tongues together before breaking the kiss.

"You can't...shouldn't do that," Jake said, licking his lips and looking a little dazed.

"I think I should," Cougar responded, liking the slightly dazed look on Jake's face and his kiss swollen lips.

"I...it's...dangerous." Jake stuttered. "I mean..."

Cougar laughed softly. "Am I truly in danger?"

Jake shook his head no even as he said yes.

Cougar laughed again. "Which?"

Jake looked up at him. "You mean more to me than just a donor to live off of," he said honestly. "You are too tempting. I, I'd want..." Jake trailed off.

"What do you want Jake?"

~~~***~~~

"More than you'll let me have," Jake stated, easily breaking out of Cougar's grasp and standing.

"And how do you know that?"

Jake didn't turn around. He couldn’t. There was a chance he could have something he’d always wanted. There was also the chance that Cougar could crush him. But then again the other man had kissed him. Jake’s mind kept bouncing back and forth between the two thoughts that he’d lost track of Cougar. Though, maybe it was just that he had become so used to Cougar’s quiet movements that they had become comfortable and something to rely on. He barely even sensed it when Cougar moved until the other man was standing just beside him.

“What do you want, Jake?” Cougar asked again, voice soft and fingers reaching to stroke Jake’s face.

“You,” Jake answered, not looking up until Cougar stroked his face again. “I want you, forever.”

~~~***~~~

Cougar smiled softly before reaching up and pulling Jake’s head down for a kiss. “What do you want right now?” he asked, grinning slightly.

“Something we can’t do on this roof,” Jake answered. “Well, I mean we could but it wouldn’t be comfortable and I’d rather be comfortable and indoors and maybe with a bed. I mean...”

Cougar silenced Jake’s rambling with what was becoming something Cougar didn’t think he’d ever want to stop doing--kissing Jake was addictive. Could he spend forever with Jake? Could he become a vampire? He was beginning to think the answer was yes.

“Let’s go home,” he said. “We’ll talk about forever in the morning.”

~ end ~

**Author's Note:**

> This story now has a sequel: [A Taste of Forever](http://archiveofourown.org/works/464388)


End file.
